2018 Vuelta a Espana - Stage 2

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The second stage of the Vuelta was a tough 163km mountainous ride from Marbella to Caminito del Rey, with rides taking on their first mountain stage of this years tour. Even with such a hilly course, this stage of the Vuelta is actually considered to be a flat stage, we saw Alejandro Valverde of Movistar winning the second stage, with Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Sky taking second place and also taking over the red leader’s jersey.

The start of the stage began in Marbella, which is home to some of Spain's wealthiest, with rides making their way through the seaside town to their first climb of 7.5km early on to reach the top of Puerto de Ardales. A group of seven riders made a break early in the stage but were never given more than a four minute break until being brought back into the main peleton.

The stage continued with no further attacks until the final rolling 30km of the stage were Team Sky worked hard to increase the pace and to put their man Michal Kwiatkowski into the lead. The pace was fast enough to also make some distance on the previous stage winner, Rohan Dennis and other contenders Richie Porte or BMC and Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida. The sprinters including Peter Sagan faded towards the end of the stage setting up Kwiatkowski for the win, but it was Alejandro Valverde who was able to finish fastest with Kwiatkowski second and Laurens De Plus of Quick Step Floors finishing third.

Overall classification after stage two

1 Michal Kwiatkowski(Pol) Team Sky in 4 hours, 22 minutes, 40 seconds
2 Alejandro Valverde(Spa) Movistar Team at 14 seconds
3 Wilco Kelderman(Ned) Team Sunweb at 25 seconds

Tomorrow - Stage 3 Start From Mijas

Although the distance between Mijas to Alhaurin is only about 25km, riders will be taking the longer way around as they take on a hilly stage into a fast and flat finish, with what will most likely be a sprint to the end.

Link to the stage three route map

Stage three of the 2018 Vuelta will have riders race from Mijas to Alhaurin de la Torre, having them travel 178km over varied terrain with the first 20km being a flat course across the coast until their take on a 5% hill climb which will see the riders climbing for approximately 20km to a peak of 1,000 meters. Riders will then descend to the town of Ronda before starting another climb to reach another 1,000 peak. With a further 50km before the finish, riders will face rolling hills through the town of Torremolinos and then into Alhaurin de la Torre.

I'll be covering each stage of the Vuelta A Espana, giving a breakdown of each days stage, my previous post for @cyclefeed were the results of stage one for this years Vuelta, so feel free to have a look:
https://steemit.com/cycling/@run.vince.run/2018-vuelta-a-espana-stage-1

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Please Note all maps are made by myself using Strava